F1 Fanatic Round-up

In the round-up: Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche says the current F1 rules packs is a major part of the sport’s appeal for Mercedes.

F1 Fanatic Live

F1 Fanatic Live will be running this weekend during the Formula Renault 3.5 races from Spa and the IndyCar races from Detroit. There’s one each on Saturday and Sunday – look out for the live posts on the home page ahead of the start.

Links

“With the objective to save fuel, be efficient and have very high performance, that’s exactly what we have to do with our production cars and we use exactly the same technical components. That’s why it’s making even more sense with the regulations than in the past.”

“Other famous F1 machines confirmed to tackle the 1.16-mile course past Lord March’s family home include the infamous Benetton-Ford that Michael Schumacher hustled to claim the 1994 drivers’ championship at the expense of Damon Hill, who was denied by a single point after a controversial crash that took them both out.”

Sky presenter Simon Lazenby: “Last year [with the V8 engines] I couldn’t hear myself think at the street circuits. Do I miss it? You know what? I’m quite happy with my hearing as it is! Damon Hill will back me up – he loves it like this.”

Comment of the day

One topic has driven more comments than any other this week – the fight for supremacy between the two Mercedes drivers. Is this a positive development for F1 or has it already become tiresome?

To be honest, I very much enjoy this rivalry. This is in fact the only thing interesting to look out for in F1 this season so far. For example I am not quite sure whose going to win the forthcoming Canadian Grand Prix although odds may be favouring Hamilton slightly. Which explains, the season is exciting.

And I am quite hopeful that Red Bull will be as quick as Mercedes by the end of the year which makes the competition even more exciting. As Ricciardo will probably take points from either of Mercedes drivers and will be fun to see how will it pan out in the drivers’ championship ultimately.@Fractal

Happy birthday!

On this day in F1

The second round of the 1954 world championship was held four-and-a-half months after the first and featured none of the F1 regulars – it was of course the Indianapolis 500, won for the second year in a row by Bill Vukovich.

As the newsreel announcer below points out, “he took the chequer only 70 seconds ahead…”

Yeah, I wish these drivers were real men like the good old days… Friends never fell out in those days it was all good hard racing and then back to jimmy’s for cucumber sandwiches and a friendly game of cribbage.

Nice to hear they’ve made up. I know I’ve said a lot worse about my friends and after a bit of time all was swell, that’s what friendship is at the end of the day. It’s for this reason I still think Mercedes have one hell of a driver line-up. RBR and McLaren of old have shown us just how explosive team-mate rivalries can be, but with Nico and Lewis being old friends I expect any emergence of animosity between the two will be short-lived

I’m going to say lies or just a cover up to get the press of their backs but surely if they were really friends they could have used a new photo? You can tell it’s an old one (Lewis’s arm). I suppose it could just be something to show that if they weren’t friends he wouldn’t be posting pictures like that but then again if they were friends and Lewis seems the sort of person to do this, why not use a ‘selfie’? Don’t actually know where I stand on this.

The driver line-up I am generally most disappointed by for failing to live up to my expectations is Alonso and Räikkönen. Alonso again has been a relentless points scorer, but besides in China he has managed to remain surprisingly anonymous.

Räikkönen hasn’t remained anonymous, but for the wrong reasons – he has been dealt a pretty consistent thrashing from his teammate, which was evident even in Monaco during qualifying. And he has not had a very error-free season, unlike the other recognised excellent drivers (Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso etc).

And the one to exceed my expectations – without wishing to appear biased – has to be Red Bull. I have always had a insitinctive feeling that Ricciardo was a good driver and his situation never fully allowed him to show it, but my has he flourished. His car control is brilliant, his tyre conservation skills akin to Vettel last season and his qualifying (perhaps unsurprisingly) very good indeed.

Once Vettel finally has a smooth running, “normal” weekend, I think we have yet another fantastic rivalry in the mix – which will surely only add to the excitement.

@vettel1 Ricciardo retired in Malaysia, who knows if China turn around wasn’t going to happen in Malaysia. I think Raikkonen which is the newcomer to the team is having issues on Fridays and that’s hurtin him nevertheless he has been on pace in Malaysia, Bahrain, Spain and Monaco as with Vettel he’s been slightly slower than Ricciardo at most places but the difference is Vettel was the majestic leader of the last generation.

Kimi was hit from the rear at least two times this season, taking away two top 5 finishes (possibly a podium at Monaco). Like Vettel, once he has tuned the car to his liking, he will be on form once more.. think Lotus 2012.

Vettel just needs to re-adapt his muscle memory for a less planted rear end (as he did for one during mid 2010-2013).. then indeed it will be another great rivalry. Depending on his adaptability, it could be from 1 month to 6 (probably the faster end for Vettel).

@scalextric I loved the onboards, first time i’ve seen them too… You get so much more of the story from onboards, e.g. the lead up to HULK’s epic manouvre on JEV was purely because JEV let MAG through leading up to Mirrabeau, then he just didn’t apex cleanly through Lowes Hairpin and then got poor traction and HULK must have nailed it and pounced…. Epic

The correlation of F1 to road car is not only important to Mercedes. Ferrari is said to be equipping the new version of the Ferrari La Ferrari with a F1 type V-6 turbo hybrid power unit by the beginning of the year. Bet Ferrari wish they had Mercedes like results to use in their adverts.

I doubt any of the manufacturers really care about road relevance – otherwise they would be in other forms of motorsport – like lemans or WRC – or just spend the money on making their road cars better. the only thing they care about is success to promote their cars. Honda, Toyota, BMW – they all left because they couldn’t win. only Ferrari doesn’t need success in f1, they are Ferrari and everyone will always love Ferrari road cars even when they don’t win in f1 – they are the quintessential F1 team that everyone knows. they have won enough to not win for the next 10 years and people will still support the brand – all the rich manufacturers have enough money to stay in f1 at a great loss, but they are greedy and exit when they cant win. Mercedes almost left because they couldn’t win, so they were happy for regulation changes – not for correlation to road cars – but because it gave them a chance to start fresh at the same point as everyone else to produce a winning package. now they have, they will stay in f1.

It makes you think how much better would be the broadcast if they would be showing that during this. Not only it looks amazing in Monaco, but you can also hear so many different noises with these new engines including bottoming and tires. So much potential wasted here.

Wonderful Onboard video . Thank you ever so much Keith . FOM , this is what you need to spice up the racing not some cheap DRS , some cheap double points and circus tricks ! And yeah let me mention it before I forget , we want to see Nico Rosberg when he tries to pass Lewis and not the facial expressions of his girlfriend.